2016 Choreographer Fellow
photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff
Megan Mayer is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, empathy, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. Her work offers glimpses of internal terrain and unexpected expressive delicacies. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, Mayer constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and victory in a gesture. Drawn to the edges of the experience of performing: the anticipatory rapid heartbeat before going onstage, and the regretful relief after exiting, her work often reveals where that switch lives in the body. Mayer’s work has been recognized by The Right Here Showcase commission (2016), a MN SAGE Award for Dance in Outstanding Design for Soft Fences (2015), a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2014), a residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography in Tallahassee, Florida (2012), a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers (2010) and a Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant (2010). Professionally based in Minneapolis since 1991, Mayer hold a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota. She feels most like herself when she is onstage being other people. www.meganmayer.com